


December 22, 1922

by acertaindefenseattorney



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 12:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6610888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertaindefenseattorney/pseuds/acertaindefenseattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- Written as a commission for Laramie way, way back in December 2015.</p><p>Jimmy Kent reassesses his feelings for Thomas Barrow, realises he needs to tell him his deepest secret. It's the fluffiest sort of fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	December 22, 1922

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laramie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/gifts).



It was the booze that did it. There’d been a number of other factors, perhaps; they’d gone to the pub, the Dog and Duck, and there had been carol singers outside the bloody doors, and a man Thomas knew from the village had stopped by at their table and talked for an hour, and though Jimmy might ordinarily resent the presence of a stranger on an outing of theirs, it had made him feel quite warm — what with the season, he supposed — to see anyone other than him pay Thomas any kind of positive attention. 

He had privately hoped they were old lovers, and he had privately hoped that they were _not_ old lovers, and neither hope had troubled him overmuch. Sitting there, he had felt ever such a sense of calm.

They’d eaten hot pie, and treacle tart for afters ( _my treat, Jimmy_ ). They’d drunk spiced cider. 

And found their walk home, which ought to have been a brisk one, in view of curfew and cold, evolving to a lingering amble, taken the long way, along the edge of the woods, bypassing the road. Under a sky so shot through with stars that it were like the light leaking through a great colander ( _that’s very poetic, Jimmy,_ said Mr Barrow. _If only more poets thought to include kitchen utensils_ ). A frost had already set upon the ground by the time they started back, so crisp was the air. 

And Mr Barrow had been loose-limbed and loose-tongued, hair slipping free of his pomade, answering questions Jimmy didn’t recall having asked. ‘I didn’t love Christmas as a child,’ he was saying, and ‘Lord - look at the _stars_ , Jimmy!’ - though Jimmy already was looking, neck craned back, with a hand on his cap and a stupid grin on his face. 

‘I never got what I wanted, and my sister did,’ he continued. ‘I was always very peevish on the day.’

‘You’re often very peevish _now,_ ’ Jimmy pointed out, and Thomas smirked at him around the cherry of his cigarette.

‘Ah. But now, if I want something, I don’t wait for it to be given.’

And Jimmy only half believed him, because it was only a half truth.

‘I liked it,’ Jimmy said. ‘Christmas. It was only the three of us, when I were small, and it were much simpler than it is in service.’

Everything about being small was simpler for Jimmy, of course - most children the same shape, and most up to the same things. But he could see how badly it must have suited Thomas Barrow, who had never been the same shape as anyone. He could hardly picture him as a child at all.

Tonight, he had chosen to be happy, and festive, on his own terms. Tomorrow, he would choose to remain so, or he wouldn’t. Last New Year, the year they didn’t speak, Jimmy had watched him elect to sing _Auld Lang Syne_ in the kitchen, with the others, only an hour after the onset of a foul mood that had brought him to snapping at the hallboys, smart-mouthing Mr Carson, sending a series of particularly sharp barbs in Mr Bates’s direction. 

And Jimmy had thought even way back then, when they weren’t talking, when studying him was a matter of idle curiosity, and didn’t set his heart to thumping as it did now - he’d thought it likely that Thomas’s day-to-day moods, good and bad, seemed to be experienced largely on his own terms. A swing toward the foul could be as much for his own amusement as it was genuine — or might simply afford him the chance to be left alone for a bit, a luxury that could hardly be overstated in service. Growl at _someone_ , and the rest would quickly take the hint, and Jimmy would catch him not ten minutes later, smirking into his paper, enjoying the solitude.

Watching him pick and choose from the festivities as he did, he could well imagine how the season might have grated on him as a child; when The Festive Spirit was dished out according to older folk’s whims, and gratitude was the accepted rule. As far as he could see, Thomas had never liked to do anything according to the rules.

And it seemed a very odd time to think it, for nothing in his observation was romantic, but it was then, watching him walk with an easy gait he had chosen to use, and gaze up at stars he had chosen to enjoy, that Jimmy had realised he loved him a little.

‘It’s simple here,’ he said, casting Jimmy a rare, true smile, without the hint of a smirk. ‘If you let it be. Serve, eat, drink, sing a hymn or two.’

‘I need to tell you something,’ said Jimmy.

 

 

Half an hour later, Thomas sat on the edge of his bed — his own bed, not Jimmy’s, which was taboo still — with a concerned set to his jaw. He had sobered, mostly, from the walk, but not completely; there was a warmth to his worry that bordered on soppy, and that Jimmy knew he would have worked to smother, to mask behind a safer expression of professional camaraderie, or mentorship, if he’d been quite sober.

For his own part, Jimmy had gone right to his hiding place, in his own room, to fetch out his stash, as soon as they had returned to the Abbey, and now sat opposite, clutching the bottle, taking regular sips to keep sobriety at bay.

‘Did you take that from the sitting room, then?’ Thomas said, eyebrows lifting.

Jimmy shook his head. ‘No — well, only what’s to be thrown out, you know. All the footmen do it,’ he half-lied. Incorruptible Alfred didn’t, in fact, but all of the footmen at Lady Anstruther’s had. It seemed, to him, a universal trick of the trade. 

Thomas nodded. ‘I used to, as a hallboy,’ he said, then smiled. ‘A little too tame an offence for me, I fear, when I was a footman.’

Jimmy said nothing, but smiled around the mouth of the bottle. Yes, he could well imagine that was true — Thomas had a natural disdain for the rules _now_ , as a fully grown member of the upper four, and had a reputation for deceit that preceded him everywhere he went (suggesting, Jimmy privately thought, that he couldn’t be much _good_ at it). Add to that the fire of youth, take away the war, and the result might well be a comic villain; for a moment, he entertained the image of Thomas as a young man, slender and sneering in his footman’s livery, stuffing his pockets with the silverware, and snorted.

‘Is this what you wanted to talk about?’ asked Thomas gently, if a little awkwardly, gesturing toward the bottle. ‘Your drinking? Only if it is, Jimmy, I do wish you’d told me before I’d taken you to the pub for the night.’

‘No,’ Jimmy laughed quickly, setting the bottle down beside the bed. ‘No, it’s nothing like that — I’m just a little,’ he paused. Really, he wanted to seem easy about all this. As if it wasn’t such a big thing, really. He was given away, he knew, by the trembling of his fingers on his knee, the muscles jumping in his throat as he swallowed the fear again and again. He sighed, bowed his head, carded his fingers back through his hair, pulling it out of its neat waves, hardly caring as he did.

‘Blimey,’ said Thomas. ‘That bad? You ought to hurry up and tell me, whatever it is,’ he sighed, placing a hand near to, but not touching, Jimmy’s. ‘Don’t just tease me with it. If I don’t know, I can’t fix it, can I?’

‘I’m going to,’ Jimmy said, quietly, settling into the fog the bottle had gifted him. It wasn’t that he was having second thoughts about telling Thomas— he was like this. Once he made up his mind to do something, he did it. When he made up personal rules, he followed them. Tonight he had decided that he loved Thomas. When he loved someone, he had to tell them. That was the rule.

It might see him sacked without a reference, but then, so might much of what he did. The bottle by the bed, for example.

It was simply that he had to get the courage up - or rather, to drown the fear. Previously he had told only Lady A, before going to bed with her, and he hadn’t loved her, not truly.

But this was the rule.

‘Jimmy,’ Thomas pressed, hand remaining where it was between them, but twitching, as if he longed to touch him, to make sure he was - he laughed - alright. ‘Whatever it is,’ he repeated, ‘we’ll fix it.’

And that was so Thomas, wasn’t it - he had already assumed the problem could be fixed, _whatever it was_. Jimmy’s heart surged against his chest; he looked at the ceiling, and then back, scrubbing a hand over his face. ‘You can’t — that’s very _kind_ , Mr Barrow,’ he swallowed, and moved, since Thomas wouldn’t, to cover his hand with his own — to his credit, while he felt the muscles jump with shock under his palm, Thomas didn’t let the surprise show on his face. He simply turned his hand over, beneath Jimmy’s, so that their palms aligned, and held him steady.

‘Alright,’ said Jimmy, giving Thomas’s hand a squeeze— not without a little sympathy, for how surreal all of this must seem to him. A year’s cold-shoulder, a few months of strictly platonic friendship, and now this. He was startled to realise that he might seem like he was about to profess his love, mightn’t he, sitting here, drinking his confidence, holding his hand, on his bed; and he felt, for a moment, guiltily, as if he were dangling Mr Barrow on a line — jerking him around with each new whim — but swallowed the feeling down a second later, feeling quite silly. He _was_ about to. It was only that it came with a complication.

’Alright,’ he said again, drawing a breath. ‘First off, Mr Barrow — _Thomas_. You ought to know that I’m telling you this because I’ve come to like you. I have,’ seeing Thomas draw a quick breath, about to say something, he rushed ahead. ‘No, listen,’ with nothing better to do, he squeezed Thomas’s hand tightly, lifting it up a little, sliding his other hand beneath it, so that it was held snug, and there could be no mistaking his intentions. ‘I like you very much. I don’t know that I realised quite how much until tonight, but now it’s settled, and I do, and I want to be with you, if you’ll still have me.’

Even as he took his hand, he didn’t dare look at Thomas’s face - he was afraid of the joy he might find there, because for all his uncertainty on the other topic, he had no doubt whatsoever that Thomas _would_ have him, if he were typical, if this were easy. Every housemaid in every house he’d ever visited had thought him the most handsome boy they’d ever seen; he knew that not through vanity but simple honesty. But none of them had looked past his flaws the way Thomas did, had they? Even silly, smitten Ivy had seen through him in the end. Thomas stuck by him like glue.

That Thomas loved him wasn’t a question.

It was just that if he was about to stop, he didn’t want to watch it happen.

‘Jimmy-‘ he began, and Jimmy shook his head firmly, eyes fixed on their joined hands.

‘No — you might not,’ he said. ‘And that’s alright. I won’t hold it against you; honest Thomas, if what I have to tell you — if it changes things for you.’

‘Jimmy, _please_ -‘ he said, and Jimmy shook his head, beginning to unbutton his shirt with his hand shaking, fumbling over the buttons before Thomas offered to help, waiting a moment for him to acquiesce before he took charge, gently unbuttoning each of the shirt’s fastenings, expression serious and concerned.

The thing was - when he parted the front, and the binding was exposed, he didn’t actually look very surprised, but nodded, with the air of a medic, touching his fingers to the edge of the tight bandage, where the skin was rubbed red.

‘This must hurt,’ he said, sympathetically, and Jimmy frowned.

‘I’m not — injured,’ he said. Thomas nodded again.

‘No, I know. I think — I’d know if you were. Show me, then.’

Feeling oddly calmed, or else just — past the point of return, and no turning back now, Jimmy reached behind himself, began to unwind the bandages, wincing with the pain and relief and wrongness of it, all at once — usually, he slept in them. He had become as unfamiliar with this part of his body as anyone else.

‘I don’t take them off,’ he said, out-loud, voice hoarse. ‘Not when I sleep. Only when I bathe.’

He had half expected Thomas to recoil, at this point — to leap off to bed, so clear had he been on the topic of ladies and _all_ their attributes — but of course, he didn’t. He sat where he was, and nodded again, calmly, and, if anything, he looked sad.

‘I never felt like a girl,’ said Jimmy, lamely, folding the bandages in his lap. 

‘Alright.’ 

Thomas frowned, reaching out to touch the material of the bandages again, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. ‘These are much too coarse to wear all the time, Jimmy.’

Jimmy felt a breath of laughter escape him before he could help it. It was all just so absurd — the air on his breasts, the confession, Thomas commenting on the comfort of his secret, rather than its nature. Mad Lady A was one thing - her reaction was predictable, all fascination and _best of both worlds,_ and batting away Jimmy’s complaints (I’m _not_ both) like buzzing insects. This was something quite different.

‘I get by,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘Thank you.’

‘You do,’ Thomas shrugged a shoulder, ‘but you oughtn’t. You’re rubbed raw, Jimmy. We’ll find you something more comfortable first thing after Christmas.’

When he finally looked up at him, tearing his eyes away from the offending bandages, he didn’t even look afraid. He looked surprised and sad and serious, and he leaned forward, cupping Jimmy’s jaw in one warm palm, and kissed him, chaste, on the lips. 

‘You’re not the first,’ he said, as he drew back, warm breath ghosting against Jimmy’s top lip, as if to explain. ‘I know a girl like you—’

At once, Jimmy scowled, ‘I’m _not_ a—’

Thomas shook his head, ‘no — I know. I mean I know a girl _like_ you _._ Born — a bloke, but never a bloke, not really.’

Jimmy wanted to laugh. He picked up the bottle from beside the bed, taking a hefty swig, and offered it to Thomas, who took it from him, downing a neat fifth and grimacing at the taste - it was, admittedly, foul. _Hah_ , he thought, wildly. _Not so unruffled as you’d like me to believe, are you, Mr Barrow_ , but the challenge was half-hearted at best — more than anything, he felt boneless and loose, and stunned, and he wanted nothing but to sleep, and couldn’t seem to keep his heart, or his hands, still.

‘Who?’ he asked, weakly, mind racing through all the women Thomas knew. ‘I’ve never met - I don’t _think_ I’ve ever met anyone like me. If I did, I didn’t know it.’

Not O’Brien, _surely_ , he thought, frowning, and Thomas shook his head as if he had heard him.

‘No-one here. A friend of my family. We used to go together, in Manchester, when we were young, before she really knew — and then, after a while, she started going as a girl.’

‘And you accepted her?’ said Jimmy. ‘Just like that?’

‘No,’ said Thomas, with flat honesty. ‘No. I thought it was nonsense. That is — I didn’t mind the clothes, and she seemed happier, so I let her get on with it alright, but I didn’t believe she was a girl. Not really. Not until… well,’ he smirked, ducking his head. ‘I never have managed — anything, with a girl. That was all the proof I needed.’

He paused, letting it sink in — and Jimmy laughed.

Because that was so typical of Thomas, wasn’t it? So perfectly confident in his preference, so totally at grips with it, that it transcended the mere bloody physics of the thing. Of course it did. Jimmy — who was so _stupid_ about his own tendencies, who had needed to spend a year in the company of Thomas Barrow, and watch him take his punches, before understanding the difference between feminine and _that_ — Jimmy was certain that he had never loved any creature more. 

Tentatively, Thomas kissed him again, just as chaste as the last; brushing his thumb across the line of his cheek; pressing a third kiss to his forehead.

‘So I don’t care, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘You might have to teach me a few new tricks, that’s all.’

‘Here,’ Jimmy said, smiling, pressing a fourth kiss to Thomas’s lips and the bandages into his lap, ’help me get bound up again.’


End file.
